The House

by Edward Lee

  "Oh, come on!"

  "You're too shy, you're too sheltered, and you're too insecure to talk to people. So I agreed to come up here, too, and keep an eye on you."

  "That's ridiculous!" Melvin nearly raged.

  "So that's the deal, and, after all, I am your stepmother. You don't want me to call your father and give him a bad report."

  Melvin wanted to punch the wall. She's got me sounding like the biggest invalid on earth! I'm a little shy! So what? I'm not a little kid who needs a baby-sitter!

  She diverted her attention back to her work. "It won't take you more than a half hour to fill in that hole and vacuum the house."

  Great. Now I'm the maid.

  "Let's not forget what we're doing up here. I'm here to work on my art in a new creative environment, and you're here to work on your article." She paused, tweezing a bone fragment onto a layer of glue. "How's your article coming by the way?"

  "Uh, fine," he murmured. He couldn't tell her he'd barely worked on it at all. He couldn't tell her he'd spent more time jerking off than writing his article. "It's going better than I expected."

  "Good, Melvin," she said as a teacher would say to a toddler in kindergarten when he'd finished his finger painting.

  He took one rueful last glance at Gwyneth's breasts. "Guess I'll be getting back to it now."

  She looked up again. Sternly. "You mean after you go get our lunch, right?"

  "But there's still leftover Chinese."

  "Melvin, I ate what was left for breakfast. Because I didn't sleep till noon. Now be a sweetheart and go get us something good. Go to pick up some burgers and fries."

  "There aren't any fast food places up here," he complained. "I'd have to drive almost all the way to Rochester!"

  "Thanks for being such a good sport, Melvin."

  Melvin sighed. Housemaid AND delivery boy. See Spot run...

  Gwyneth unconsciously pulled up her bra straps. The gesture elucidated her breasts to a spectacular effect. "Oh, and don't fill the hole back in yet. There might still be more cool stuff in it."

  Cool stuff? Melvin thought. In a hole in the ground? "What's the big deal with this hole?"

  Her eyes lit up. "Look what I found," and she reached into a small cardboard box and withdrew an animal skull. It was about the size of a melon. "It's perfect. The perfect hue for my next mosaic."

  Melvin's frown was rich. "An animal skull? How can you make a mosaic out of that? It's too big."

  "Not with the skull itself, silly." She hefted the hammer. "I'm going to smash it up into bits and use the pieces."

  Melvin shook his head. What a weirdo. But at least she's got great tits. "Oh, I wanted to ask you something," he said, remembering Gwyneth's job with the straw. "Did you come into my room last night?"

  She threw a smirk at him. "No, Melvin, I did not come into your room last night."

  The look on her face seemed convincing. I guess I dreamed that too...

  A brief anger flared. "And don't you dare be playing that damn radio of yours again tonight. It kept waking me up! That's rude, Melvin. What is that shit you were listening to? Barry Richards, the home of the heavy, heavy head? What the hell is that? And who in God's name is Barry Richards?"

  Melvin's eyes crossed at her. "I have no idea on earth what you're talking about. I don't know anybody named Barry Richards, and I didn't even bring a radio."

  Now her smirk signaled disbelief. "Well, it must be some music download on your computer, or some radio-internet thing."

  Melvin remained firm. "I don't know what you're talk—"

  "Melvin!" she abruptly yelled. "Stop being so weird! There was a radio station playing last night! It wasn't me so it had to be you! So don't play it tonight! Can you handle that? Is that too complicated for you?" Her hands gestured at the pile of junk before her on the table. "I have important work to do here! So go get our fucking lunch! And don't play that fucking radio again tonight! And quit bugging me!"

  Ah, so I'M the one being weird, Melvin thought uselessly. You're the one who walks around naked and drinks chocolate sauce with a straw. You're the one who pees in the grass and digs holes in the yard. And you're the one sitting there with an ANIMAL SKULL ON THE TABLE! But I'm the one who's weird.

  "Okay," he said.

  The day was ruined. Melvin figured the only way to salvage something good out of it would be to masturbate in the bathroom in grand style. He was about to leave when she said, "What do you think this is?"

  "Huh?"

  She was holding the skull up now, looking at it with inquisitiveness. "What kind of skull?"

  There wasn't anything in the entire world that Melvin could've cared less about. "I don't know. Looks too big to be a racoon or possum. Dog skull, maybe."

  Her eyes held fast to it. Her voice reverted to its usual cool drone: "Or maybe a pig."

  (II)

  Melvin did indeed masturbate in the bathroom before he left, in grand style. It was a frenzied, nearly maddening release full of angst and resentment. In his mind he saw himself slapping her down. Suddenly Melvin was a big decked-out black-rappin' thug-life lovin' pimp. His name would be Big Melvy P., or maybe Rap Daddy M. Who is 2 Kool 4 U. Melvin made the scene and if you fucked with him he'd bust a cap in your ass with his AK. Yes sir, Rap Daddy M. could BUST a move, and of course, the hottest bitches in town all lined up to work the street for him, and his top-drawer ho was Gwyneth and, see, she'd been holdin' out on him but Rap Daddy M. was wise to that shit, man, so he lay down some hard pimp-hand 'fo he grabbed hisself some hang-time on duh monkey. Her big bodacious white-bitch tits jiggled when his big black hand cracked her right across her lily-white face. "I slap you UP, bitch!" his terrifying voice thundered. "Ain't none of my ho's holds out on Rap Daddy M., ya dig?" CRACK! Her tits jiggled again, nipples sticking out like fucking spark plugs. "I've been a bad girl, Rap Daddy M.!" she squealed on her knees before him. "I need some lovin' like only Rap Daddy M. can lay down! Gimme some'a that big licorice stick!" and then those killer white thighs were divaricated before him, butterscotch quiff all hot and ready. Who's duh MAN? Shit-yeah! Uh-HUH!

  The image provided an outstanding orgasm, the residue of which Melvin anxiously deposited into the crotch of a pair of her panties he'd found in the hamper in the bathroom. There, how do you like that, bitch? Call me a weirdo? Call me shy and sheltered and insecure? Make fun of ME? Well, there. How do you like that?

  Melvin veritably creamed the panties—a beautiful frilly shade of noon-blue, by the way—and chucked them back in the hamper. Then he zipped back up and washed his hands, and—

  The aftermath of the event caused him to reflect. He looked hard at himself in the mirror, and realized: That was...uncharacteristic? Not masturbating, which he did excessively, but the mental images he'd summoned. Melvin was not a violent person. He abhorred violence of any kind, and had never found it to be erotic or stimulating in any way. So why did I just have the best orgasm of my life while fantasizing that I was slapping Gwyneth silly?

  It was a disturbing consideration.

  Aw, I was just mad 'cos she's a dizzy bitch, he blew it off and left the bathroom. Something else occurred to him, though.

  Something he wanted to check before he went to get lunch.

  In the pantry, he looked on his laptop. He didn't have any music downloads on it but sometimes he did listen to internet radio while online. Was I online yesterday? He couldn't remember. Maybe I forgot to log off, but when he checked, he saw that he hadn't.

  Hmmm.

  There'd been no radio on last night, no weird music. She really is off her rocker, Melvin decided. To satisfy his curiosity, he quickly logged online, checked his browser, and saw that he hadn't gone to any internet radio sites in over a week. Then he ran a search for Barry Richards and clicked the first page that came up, to discover that a disk jockey named Barry Richards made some minor notoriety with on a Maryland radio station called WHMC (the heart of Montgomery County), 1150 on the AM dial. Richards was thought of as a
progenitor shock-jock, calling himself "The Boss of Sauce." He's also credited as a maverick of sorts by promoting controversial acts such as Blue Cheer, Pentagram, Bloodrock and Alice Cooper, in the late '60s. In 1968, he also booked Led Zeppelin into an obscure high school community center, insisting that the group would soon become the biggest band in the history of music since the Beatles and was laughed at when he could only sell 50 tickets to the show. Two years later, when Led Zeppelin had become the biggest band in the history of music since the Beatles, Richards booked them again with local hard-rock outfit Sir Lord Baltimore. Zeppelin performed dismally even as their brand-new single "Whole Lotta Love" hit number one on the charts, and Sir Lord Baltimore blew them off the stage. As for the station, WHMC remains a legendary footnote as one of the nation's first "progressive" radio stations, and was taglined, "The home of the heavy, heavy head." After multiple FCC violations, they went off the air in 1977.

  Barry Richards, Melvin rolled the name over in his mind. The home of the heavy, heavy head? Gwyneth had just said that to him, hadn't she? It must have been something she'd heard elsewhere. Then Melvin considered something further: Maybe she's slipping some vodka into that ridiculous chocolate sauce juice of hers. Hey, it was a thought.

  Melvin made doubly sure to log off the internet and shut the laptop down. Who knew? Maybe some audio pop-up had come on the computer last night, and that's what Gwyneth had heard.

  Five minutes later, he was driving Dad's Hummer away from the house, heading north. I feel...much better all of a sudden, he thought, eyes wide behind the wheel, the gorgeous countryside unreeling before him. The high sun, blue sky, and deliriously green hills therapized his mood more effectively than a couple of Prozacs. It almost seemed the minute he left the house his head had been cleared of all the anguish, illogic, and nonsense that had hounded him for the last 24 hours.

  He drove for a full hour without a single sign of civilization. He should be getting close to the outskirts of the Rochester area, or at least he thought so. What is with this place? There's NOTHING out here. No shopping centers, no strip malls. He didn't even see one house for all that distance. And of course no fast food joints for Gwyneth's lunch.

  Eventually he turned around. There's no way I'm driving all the way to Lake Ontario just so Gwyneth can have a damn Big Bruford Burger with fries! But the only place he knew he could get food was same shopping center he'd gotten the Chinese at. Sheriff Funk said there was a pizza place there, too, he recalled. Heading south again, he dialed Gwyneth's cell phone from his own. It rang several times with no pickup. Jesus, she's not even there now! Probably out in the yard digging in that hole again... Just when he expected the voice mail message to come on, a female voice answered, "Hello? Is this Rocco? We're dying up here, Rocco."

  Melvin winced. It clearly wasn't Gwyneth's voice. Immediately he thought, I dialed the wrong number, but...

  What did she say?

  "Did you say you're dying?"

  The female voice sounded tiny, exhausted. "Please bring our junk. And we don't have anything to eat, either, and neither do the dogs. If we don't croak stringing out we'll starve to death."

  Melvin remained silent, cogitating. Wow. When I dial a wrong number, I dial a WRONG NUMBER... "I'm sorry, I dialed your number by mistake," he said, "but it sounds like you need help..."

  "We don't need help, we need junk!"

  Melvin stared at the open road.

  Another woman's voice could be heard in the background, jabbering something. Did he hear dogs barking? He heard something else too: a whining chortle...

  Then she said, "You're not Rocco! Leonard, is that you?"

  Melvin severed the connection, eyes opened so wide he could feel their surface going dry.

  Calm down, calm down. His mind ticked. No big deal, it's just another coincidence. I dialed the wrong number and it happened to be a bunch of mentally ill people, and they just happened to know someone named Leonard. Lots of people are named Leonard...

  Leonard Nimoy. Elmore Leonard. Sugar Ray Leonard...

  He drove a while to regain some composure, then much more carefully dialed Gwyneth's cell. After one ring, he got a recording of her droning, pretentious tone: "This is Gwyneth, I'm busy creating important works of art, so leave a message..."

  Melvin's frown was incised and tense. He wanted to suggest that her first gallery opening could appropriately be held in the back of a garbage truck, but...he didn't. Instead, he said, "I couldn't find a fast food place so I'm heading back. There's no fast food out here so it's going to have to be more Chinese or pizza. Call me back and let me know which," and then he hung up in self-contained disgust.

  An hour up and then an hour back and now another 45 minutes to the pizza place and another 45 minutes back—just for lunch. I'm blowing the whole day for my father's nutty wife. How am I ever going to get my article written?

  His mood was spoiled already.

  He drove all the way back down the county highway. His ass hurt from sitting in the seat for so long. A half mile up the road, he spied a hitchhiker going his way. It was a girl in shorts and a white top, slim, long dark hair. Pick her up, pick her up! he yelled at himself. Melvin, being the shy type, did not pick up hitchhikers for the simple reason that he was too unsocialized to know what to say to them. With all too much detail, then, he remembered the coolly cruel things Gwyneth had said to him yesterday: Your father explained everything to me about your...problems. You never developed the way most normal, healthy people develop. You're sheltered, you're shy, there's no common ground between your psychological makeup and the regular world... Then:

  I'll show her, he determined. No common ground with the regular world, huh?

  Melvin decided to pick up the hitchhiker.

  From afar, she looked good, and closer up?

  Not so good.

  It was Squirrelly.

  He rolled down the window and pulled up next to her. "Hi, Squirrelly! Remember me?"

  "Oh, fuck yeah sure, hi!" She seemed elated that he'd stopped. She hopped in: dirty, corpse-white, and dull-eyed...but perky as ever. "Oh, shit man, man, thanks for the ride. Lemme tell ya, it is a motherfuckin' BITCH trying to get a ride on this bumfuck road."

  "So how have you been?" Melvin asked because, well, it seemed appropriate to field an interest in her well-being, and what made him feel terrific was that he didn't feel the least bit nervous picking her up and talking to her. Better still, she was talking back to him!

  "Me? Oh, man, yesterday I was stringing so bad I threw up all that great Chinese food you gave me, then Chopper and his boys show up and I wound up OD-ing on some fuckin' shit he called an Eight Ball, man, I don't know what the fuck it was but it wasn't no Eight Ball, and then Chopper got all pissed off and punched me in the stomach 'cos I passed out when he was cornholing me, and then I had a nightmare that the devil was roasting me in a big-ass brick oven..but, shit, man, I'm doing okay. How about you?"

  "Oh, I'm fine, Squirrelly." Melvin got back on the highway. "Gee, it's really good to see you."

  She looked at him cock-eyed. "It...is?" She scratched her head, and a few flakes of dandruff fell. "Oh, well, yeah man, it's really good to see you, too. Shit, yeah, okay, yeah I know, you must want another blowjob like yesterday so—oh, shit, well, I didn't really quite give ya one 'cos you came in your pants, but yeah, shit, man, yeah, I'll blow you for, like, twenty bucks?" Her eyes looked dully hopeful. "Or maybe, like, even forty!"

  Melvin was waylaid. It didn't matter that she was a raddled, drug-addicted prostitute. He was talking to her, he was interacting. And it was easy!

  The shitty day was getting better again. She's offering oral sex for money and, given the benefit of her obvious experience, she probably does it with some considerable proficiency. And there was no way he'd come too soon this time. He'd had four or five orgasms in the last 24 hours! "That would be great, Squirrelly, but...can I ask you something first?"

  "Fuck, yeah, man." She scratched her crotch through the dirt
y cutoff jeans. "What?"

  It had all clicked in Melvin's mind just that second. "Remember yesterday when you were telling me about your sister?"

  "Oh, yeah, man, Spooky. Man, they cut her fuckin' arms off, man, Vinchetti's people, and used her for kinks and scats. Fucked up shit, man. They were a bunch'a SICK motherfuckers, and then they probably snuffed her out."

  "Yes, yes, and that's all very tragic, but didn't you say something like your sister stayed in the house I'm renting? And she heard something on the radio?"

  "Yeah, sure. They took her up there for a flick like over five fuckin' years ago before she disappeared. A couple of Vinchetti's jobbers. Man, these were hardcore motherfuckers Vinch had doing this shit but Spooky said they were all scared shitless after one night in that fuckin' house. They kept hearing this weird music from a long time ago, some radio station from the '70s but this was in the fuckin' '90s, man. And there wasn't a radio in the house anyfuckingwhere."

  Melvin's sense of curiosity played with that one. Hmmm.